Last updated on July 18th, 2023 at 01:59 pm
The DNC made a tremendously important and long-needed change to its primary calendar by removing the almost exclusively white state (the one that sets expectations and can drive half of the candidates out of the race) back in the calendar and moving up a state with a large black population. Finally, the all-important first primary “looks like the Democratic party.”
According to the Associated Press:
Democrats voted Friday to remove Iowa as the leadoff state on the presidential nominating calendar and replace it with South Carolina starting in 2024, a dramatic shakeup championed by President Joe Biden to better reflect the party’s deeply diverse electorate.
Joe Biden would not be president if it were not for the strong black turnout in South Carolina. Donald Trump would likely be president. The close election showed that it is more likely than not that Joe Biden was the only Democrat who could beat Donald Trump.
The Democratic National Committee’s rule-making arm made the move to strip Iowa from the position it has held for more than four decades after technical meltdowns sparked chaos and marred results of the state’s 2020 caucus.
The change also comes after a long push by some of the party’s top leaders to start choosing a president in states that are less white, especially given the importance of Black voters as Democrats’ most loyal electoral base.
Without the loyalty of black voters, the Democrats would win very few elections. Again, given the fact that when fields have 12 candidates, perhaps half of them will drop out of the race after the first caucus or primary. Thus, in a state whose interest is primarily in agriculture and that damned ethanol question that was so important for so long, half the candidates are out over narrow Democratic issues
It was time to start in a state that shared a wide number of issues important to Democrats, women’s rights, civil rights generally, taxes on the middle class or poor, student loan reform, legalization of marijuana… If we are going to dump up to half the candidates based on their performance in the first contest, then it should be a contest about issues that pertain to all Democrats, especially our core base, our most loyal base, Black Americans.
This is a move to be celebrated.
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